LG Electronics officially announced its latest flagship smartphone, G2, which it said is “the first smartphone introduced under LG’s new “G” Series for premium devices, exemplifying LG’s aim to bring forth more customer-centric innovations”.

Perhaps the most unusual feature is that all of the buttons are on the rear of the device, “making this the first smartphone to be completely devoid of all side buttons”. The vendor said that this is because “the larger the phone became, the more difficult it was to properly access the side keys”.

In hardware terms, the device is as impressive as would be expected: it has a 5.2-inch full HD screen, 13MP camera, and is powered by a quadcore 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. It is available in 32GB and 16GB versions.

The company said the screen is “the largest display designed for one-handed operation in today’s popular 2.7-inch width smartphone category”. It also uses “Graphic RAM” technology which reduces the energy consumption of the display by up to 26 per cent on still frames, and increases overall battery life by around 10 per cent.

The 13MP camera is also accompanied by Optical Image Stabiliser (OIS) technology to prevent blurring, a feature it says is generally used for cameras offering resolutions of 4MP to 8MP – although it is also available on some of Nokia’s Lumia devices. It said “the G2 is unique in that it offers 13MP and OIS technology in a slim design without a protruding lens”.

And LG said the G2 is “the first smartphone on the market today to feature 24 bit/192kHz Hi-Fi playback that reproduces studio-like quality sound, far superior to a CD”.

The device will be rolled out across more than 130 operators in the next eight weeks, starting in South Korea followed by North America, Europe, and “other key markets”.